A small child wears a small fitted t-shirt with the word "WILD" in black all caps font all over it. The child also wears pants with gray geometric bears too and sits on a white blanket featuring navy cacti and blue teepees

Hello, fabric friends! Looking for an adorable and easy project that’s perfect for a weeknight? We love these DIY baby tees–they’re so quick you can knock out a bunch for gifts or outfit your kids in totally custom me-made wardrobes. And, as an added bonus, you can make one baby tee with just a fat quarter of fabric. Ready to get started? Grab your organic cotton knit fat quarter and some supplies and let’s jump right in!

If you’re more of a visual learner, click here to jump down to the video. featuring Spoonflower ops superstar Tim.

Materials

Here’s what you’ll need for this project:

Start by placing the pattern pieces on your fabric and aligning along the grain. Grain lines run parallel to the selvage of the fabric and are the strongest threads of a woven fabric. Typically, you’d want your pattern to run along these lines so that it holds up for years to come.

A hand is shown tracing pattern pieces for a baby tee. White fabric with the word "WILD" in all caps black font repeating across the fabric is laid under the pattern piece.

Trace around the pattern with a fabric pen or pin the pattern in place. 

If you’re using the same fabric for the neckband, trace this pattern piece. We’re using ribbing, so we’re going to skip this step!

Tim leans over a table cutting out the pattern pieces for the tee from the fabric

Cut your pieces out. 

You should have 5 pieces, since we’re using ribbing for the neckline, we only have 4 – The front piece, back piece, right sleeve and left sleeve.

Tim places the right sides together of the tee and pins them in place

Place the front and back pieces right sides together and pin in place.

Tim sews the body pieces and shoulder seams together

Stitch the side and shoulder seams together using a ⅝” seam allowance.

Tim presses the side seams of the tee open

Press open your side seams.

Press open your shoulder seams | Spoonflower Blog

Repeat for the shoulder seams.

They should look like this. Pressing your seams makes everything lie flat and look more professional. Trust me, this step is important.

Tim marks and hems the bottom of the shirt

Hem the bottom of the shirt by flipping the unfinished edge in twice – about ¼”, and stitching.

Tim hems the baby t-shirt sleeves

Now, we will do the same steps to hem the sleeves by flipping in ¼” then stitching. Press your seams open (are you detecting a pattern?)

Tim pins the cuffs for our baby tee

Now we’re going to pin the sleeves into the arms to stitch them.

Flip the sleeves right side out and find the center, then pin to the shoulder seam, and the body seam. This is a little tricky to see in the picture–refer to the video for a better, more detailed visual.

Tim sews the sleeves on our baby tee

Stitch sleeve into armholes using  1/4” seam.

When you’re finished with both sleeves, turn the shirt right side out.

Tim folds the t-shirt neckband

Finally, it’s time to add in your neckline!

Since we’re using ribbing, this step looks a little different, but it’s the same process. Fold your neckline in half, place right sides together and stitch a ⅝” seam.

Tim pins the neckband to the shirt

Divide the neckline into four sections.

To ensure your neckline lays flat (especially important with our ribbed neckband, since it’s stretchy), you must divide it into 4 sections. Do the same with your T-shirt by finding the center of the front, center of the back, and shoulder seams. With your 4 sections, pin the neckband and t-shirt body together.

Tim stretches the neckband while sewing to keep it flat |

Sew the neckline to the right side of the fabric by starting in the center back and slightly stretching the neckband to fit into the t-shirt. There should a perfect amount of stretch in between each pin.  

Tim holds up a finished baby t-shirt!

And that’s it! You’ve got an adorable custom baby shirt! Complete the handmade baby apparel trifecta with our baby leggings and bib video tutorials!!  

Happy Sewing!